1) open
covenants of peace, openly arrived at, with diplomacy conducted in
public view

2) freedom
of navigation of the seas in peace and in war

3) free
trade between nations

4)
reduction of national armaments to the lowest point possible

5)
impartial adjustment of all colonial claims, based on the principle that
subject populations should have an equal voice with the claims of the
colonial governments

6)
evacuation of Russian territories

7)
evacuation of Belgium (occupied by the Germans)

8)
evacuation and freedom of French territory and return to

France of
Alsace-Lorraine, improperly taken after Franco-Prussian war of 1871

9)
readjustment of the frontiers of Italy along clearly recognizable lines
of nationality

10)
self-determination for peoples of the Austro-Hungarian empire

11)
evacuation and freedom for Romania, Serbia, and Montenegro, with
international agreements for freedom and self-determination of the
several Balkan states

12)
self-determination for peoples of Turkish Ottoman Empire along with
security for Turkey

13)
independence for Poland with assurance of free access to sea and
territorial integrity

14)
establishment of a League of Nations

Brief Description of the League

The victorious Allied Powers of World War I
established the League of Nations. The League's charter, known as the
Covenant, was approved as part of the Treaty of
Versailles at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. The mission, as
stated in the Covenant, was "to promote international co-operation and
to achieve international peace and security." U.S. President Woodrow Wilson was
awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1919 for his leadership in creating the
League. Despite Wilson's efforts, the U.S. Congress refused to ratify
the Treaty of Versailles.

The League was ineffective in stopping the military
aggression that led to World War II. It ceased its work during the war
and dissolved on April 18, 1946. The United Nations assumed its assets
and carries on much of its work.

The failure of the Senate to ratify the Treaty of Versailles, and
consequently the League of Nations, meant that the United States did not
continue to be involved in world affairs following the First World War,
even though it was technically at war with Germany until the 1921 Treaty
of Berlin. For twenty years, the United States stayed away from global
affairs, keeping isolationism as its major foreign policy, right up to
the moment when Japanese aircraft attacked an American naval base in
Hawaii.

The Treaty of Versailles includes
440 articles. The principal items are:

·Germany
has to cede Alsace-Lorraine to France.

·Germany
has to cede the coal mines in the Saar-area to France.

·Germany
has to cede an area with Moresnet, Eupen, Malmédy and St. Vith
to Belgium.

·Germany
has to cede the main part of West-Prussia and almost the whole province
of Posen to the new state of Poland.

·Germany
has to cede all colonies: Togo en Cameroun, the territories in East-
and South-West Africa, islands in the Pacific and possesions in China.

·All
German properties in foreign countries are confiscated.

·Germany
has to cede al war material to the allies.

·German
compulsory military service is abolished, as well as the General Staff.

·Germany
is not allowed to have tanks, airplanes, submarines, large warships and
poison gas.

·During
15 years Germany is not allowed to station troops on the left border of
the river Rhine and in a 50 km strip on the right border of the Rhine.

·Germany
has to cede to the allies all seagoing ships with a carrying capacity
exceeding 1600 Brt, plus half of all ships between 1000 and 1600 Brt.
Furthermore one fourth of the fishing fleet and two fifths of the inland
navigation fleet has to be ceded.

·Germany
has to cede large amounts of machinery and building materials, trains
and trucks.

·Germany
has to deliver certain amounts of coal, chemicals, dye and fuel for
many years.